NEW YORK -- Billy Crystal plays a psychiatrist in Analyze This. Most actors wouldn't need to do much research for the role, especially if they had just endured Crystal's recent unlucky showbiz streak.

Crystal has had three consecutive strike outs, and he's got nobody to blame but himself.

Forget Paris -- most people did. Father's Day -- not to be remembered. My Giant -- dwarfed at the box office.

The comic actor who hit it big with When Harry Met Sally and the City Slicker series is down but not out.

So there. So, the impish Crystal sits patiently in an Essex House hotel room listening to a reporter list the misfires.

Most actors wouldn't need much of an excuse to react in a hostile manner. Especially if they had to listen to somebody remind them of their career state. But Crystal's a fairly stable exception in many ways.

For one thing, he's been long married to his childhood sweetheart. They met as teenaged Long Island camp counsellors at Lido Beach.

More than 33 years later, he'd still rather talk about his wife, Janice, than his latest film roll of the dice. And that isn't because he anticipates more bad movie news.

In fact, most reports indicate Crystal will be enjoying a turnaround with Analyze This, which opens Friday.

Directed by Harold Ramis and developed by Crystal, the movie features Robert De Niro as a New York gangster, who is having trouble with the anxiety and stress of his high-pressure profession. Crystal plays the mob guy's reluctant shrink.

The comedy combination of De Niro and Crystal seems to work, but as Crystal has discovered during the last few years, test screenings and market projections are anything but guarantees.

Which brings us back to Crystal's failed attempts at what should've been surefire hits previously.

He shrugs.

"You get scared," he admits with a faint trace of his Long Island accent surfacing.

"You think, 'Wow, that was a good movie. What happened?' But if you look at everybody's careers, they have ups and downs."

What he has learned is simple.

"You can wake up in the middle of the night and go, 'Huh, why, what, when.' I'm still going to do what I've always done."

That usually means make people laugh. He's done that since his standup days in the mid-70s, his role on TV in Soap as Jodie, the in-love gay brother, on Saturday Night Live for one season in the '80s and then in the movies.

Crystal is in the process of returning to his roots as he prepares a one-man show featuring some of his old characters and some new ones. He figures that he'll open it in L.A. by the year 2000. He might even bring it to Broadway. He's that brave.

"It's taking form. It's very hard to write a play for 20-something characters that I'll play," he says. "But I decided to go back to something that got me into movies in the first place -- the fun I've had on stage."

While focusing on films, Crystal got a taste of live performances with his Comic Relief fundraisers he put together with Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg. And his acclaimed Oscar-emcee jobs added to his live performance need, although he passed on doing the Oscars in '99 -- "too much distracting pressure," he says.

Crystal, who will be 51 next month, smiles. "And," he says pretending to become an old man, "as you get older, you go, 'All right, let's see, should I do this now? Yes, I'm ready."

So Billy Crystal is going back to his first love -- standup.

"No, it's not my first love," he says quietly, "I married her."

Aaah. So do you remember, your first date?

"It was 1966," he says becoming more animated. "This is all soft stuff, but it's good.

"First date, July 30, 1966. I still have the actual ticket stubs. Mets game.

"I didn't even have a driver's licence. I had a double date with a guy named Eddie Cohen. And it was Casey Stengel's 75th birthday, and Eddie had four seats. So I said to my wife, 'You want to go?' She said, 'Sure.' And 33 years later."

Crystal is staring, lost in his memories. Maybe he's thinking about his wife, his two grownup daughters in their 20s, or maybe he's picturing them at their beachfront Pacific Pallisades house in L.A.

Some movie star. Some self-absorbed comic. He's like a normal guy.

Finally, Crystal snaps out of it to explain his ways and means, and his low maintenance.

"You feel so stupid complaining about anything," Crystal suggests. "Because I'm so fortunate despite any loss of privacy, in restaurants, or having things written about me, and shielding my kids from it.

"That's probably the worst thing, the cheap shots that people will say. They take shots at you, and you can't defend yourself."

And then, of course, there is the recognition factor.

"Oh gawd," he says. "This is so horrible."

But he's a comedian, so he proceeds.

"Someone recognized my shoes once, while sitting in a can in Las Vegas.

"A guy shouts, 'Crystal!' I looked up, I looked down, and my pants are on my shoes. And the guy goes, 'We're very big fans! Would you sign this?' I said, 'Not right now.' "

Billy Crystal is difficult that way. "Yes," he says, "I am."

But the question is, Billy Crystal -- who won that 1966 first-date Mets game?

"Y'know what," he says grinning. "I don't remember, because my wife and I were making out by the seventh inning."

OSCARS: Crystal turned down the emcee job this year and he feels guilty. "You know, that's a problem. And I feel bad about it. But that alone puts a lot of pressure on me. You can imagine. I enjoy doing it when it's fun. The last thing you want to do is do it in a year you're not excited about doing it. At the end last year, I said, 'See you next year.' And as I came off, I said, 'What did I just say?' "


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